Google are stepping in a new direction with their latest announcement, in that they're accepting submissions for their Google Play for Education platform which will provide education- and age-appropriate applications to schools.

Google Play for Education will fall under the Play Store, but will allow bulk purchasing and content curation for apps, books and movies for K-12 schools. If a developer has an age-appropriate application, they can now mark it for inclusion, which will see a third-party group of educators review it.

This third-party of educators will review each and every app, reviewing its subject, grade level and whether or not it meets a set of development guidelines that have been set in place for the education system. Part of these guidelines see that the app must not collect personally identifiable information or use student data for noneducational use.

Only hours ago did we report that Samsung could possibly be leaving the desktop PC business, where they would put full force into their portable devices, but the South Korean company have now issued a statement denying such things:

I'm glad to see Samsung reacting to this so quickly, and so they should. They're one of the stronger companies at the moment and they need to show that the PC market is still something worth doing business in, let's just hope Windows 8.1 can change things around, and quick.

Western Digital, a company known for their magnetic hard drives, has signed a deal to acquire sTec, a company known for their solid state drives. Specifically, Western Digital has announced that HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital, will make the acquisition for $340 million, allowing Western Digital to enter into the solid state market.

The deal is expected to close in the third or fourth quarter of 2013, allowing Western Digital to hopefully enter the solid state market with the new technology sometime in 2014. Western Digital wants to add SSDs to its enterprise line-up at a time when big companies are ready to start implementing the technology.

Snapchat seems to be doing very well for itself. It has experienced massive growth and is a major player in the mobile app market, despite Facebook's attempt to kill the app with Poke. The app boats 200 million "snaps" daily, meaning it's pushing quite a bit of data. For right now, the app doesn't seem to have a way to make money, so seed funding is important.

The company has confirmed that it raised $60 million in funding and saw itself garner an $800 million pre-money valuation. If you'll recall, Facebook bought Instagram for not much more than that. The company has raised a total of around $75 million since it debuted back in September 2011.

This morning, Apple officially released iOS 7 beta-2 for iPhone 5, 4S, 4, iPod Touch, iPad, and iPad mini, and it is now available for download from iTunes. This release comes two weeks after the original beta was handed to developers immediately after Apple's WWDC conference.

iOS 7 Beta 2 has been optimized for the iPad and iPad mini, in addition to the iPhone and iPod touch. At the moment, we haven't had a chance to take a more in-depth look, but developers are reporting numerous bug fixes and improvements for all devices as well as the addition of the voice memos app. Siri also gets new voices in English and, as we reported earlier, name recognition is improved as well.

We first saw Huawei's 7-inch budget tablet back in March when it was leaked by @evleaks, and today we're finally getting our first official look at the wallet-friendly tablet. Huawei has just announced the existence of the MediaPad 7 Vogue, a 7-inch Android tablet aimed at taking some market share back from the Google's Nexus 7.

The new tablet is available in both 3G and Wi-Fi only flavors and sports a five-point multi-touch IPS display with a resolution of 1024x600. Handling the processing duties is Huawei's own in-house K3V2 ARM Cortex-A9 1.2GHz quad-core processor.

The device features 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, which is augmented by an microSD slot capable of up to 32GB of additional space. On the back is a three-megapixel camera capable of shooting 1080p video at 30 frames per second, while a 0.3-megapixel virtually useless camera upfront handles the video calling and selfie duties.

This morning, HP unveiled what has to be the largest Android tablet in existence. The 21.5-inch Slate 21 AIO is HP solution to a dwindling PC market which has seen a steady decline in sales ever since tablets became popular.

Not much is known about the hardware featured in the Slate 21 AIO at the moment, but we do know that it is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor and runs Android 4.2.2. The display is a 21.5-inch full HD diagonal reclining IPS touchscreen with super wide viewing angles.

It has built-in DTS sound and HP TrueVision HD WebCam and wireless direct which enables users to share videos photos and data between devices without the need of a network connection. HP says the Slate 21 will be available in September with prices starting at $399.

When it was first announced that Intel was using thermal grease instead of solder to attach the CPU die to the heat spreader on Ivy Bridge chips, the overclocking world became very disappointed. The thermal interface material that was used really left a lot to be desired, and as such, Ivy Bridge chips were not as overclocking-friendly as previous generations.

This morning a forum post by user "Toppc" on the Taiwanese website Coolaler has unveiled what appears to be a next-generation Ivy-E ship, which has been delidded to unveil that Intel has once again switched back to solder as the connecting material between the heat spreader and CPU die.

The chip in question is said to be an Ivy Bridge-E Core i7 4960x, which should retail in the $1000 range on release. Fortunately for us, Toppc cared less about his expensive CPU and more by showing the world what was inside. With Intel switching back to solder, we can most likely expect very respectable overclocking numbers coming from Ivy-E this September.

Sony has announced pre-order details for the upcoming Gran Turismo 6 on it's PlayStation blog this morning. The company is offering a unique car pack with four cars to all who pre-order the game and has detailed out some pretty sweet exclusive pre-order packs from GameStop and Amazon.com.

Up first, GameStop is offering not only the four cars pictured above, but for $59.99 gamers can pre-order the exclusive GT6 15th Anniversary Edition and get an additional 16 exclusive cars with exclusive paint jobs, race suits, helmets, and a PSN Avatar. Also included is a free copy of the Beyond the Apex II app. Other features are said to be included but will not be disclosed until closer to launch. Check out the awesome list of exclusive cars that come with the GameStop pre-order below.

Finally, Amazon.com is offering their own exclusive pre-order deal which includes the original four cars pictured above but also includes $1,000,000 in in-game credit. This will allow gamers to build their ultimate garage straight out of the box, and will solidify them as becoming master of their GT6 universe. The credit can be used to unlock multiple aspects of the game, purchase vehicles, upgrades, and other in-game features. The pre-order at Amazon is also about $60, so the decision on which to buy will be a tough one.

We'll learn everything there is to know about the new Sony Xperia Z Ultra, as well as the new Sony SmartWatch, the Xperia C, and a new version of the Xperia SP, in less than 24 hours when Sony holds its event at the Mobile Asia Expo. Until then, we will have to settle on a couple of leaks that have popped up around the web this morning.

A new Xperia Z model has shown up that features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor instead of the previously seen Snapdragon S4. The leak comes courtesy of serial Russian smartphone leaker Eldar Murtazin via his Twitter account. Murtazin says that the upgraded Xperia Z is "really fast," and that the screen appears to be an upgraded LCD3-type, similar to the one featured on the HTC One.

This new version is being dubbed the Xperia Z Ultra and appears to come in white. A metal chassis also appears to be present and the screen seems to be pencil friendly. This would bolster rumors that the screen does not need a digitizer much like the Galaxy S4 from Samsung.

Earlier this year, Valve announced a new rewards system that awards you virtual trading cards based on the games you play, with additional cards being obtained through trading with friends. That service is set to launch just two days from now on the 26th and the company has just teased that "an event we think everyone can be excited about," will also begin on the 26th.

Chances are that this "event" will be the highly anticipated Steam Summer Sale, which begins every year around this time. In the event that you are new to PC gaming, the Steam Summer Sale is a week's long sale in which Steam puts top titles on sale for as much as 70% off with different games being added every day.

While almost everyone looks forward to the Summer Sale, I usually get pretty nervous when it arrives. Last year I bought a total of 13 games and spent roughly $100 total. Of those 13 games I think I have installed and played maybe 6, and with so many great titles out right now, I am sure I will buy many more this year.

It looks like adoption rates of solar power are about to get much better, with the cost of photovoltaic solar panels expected to drop to around 36c per watt by 2017, according to new research by cleantech market research firm, GTM Research.

Solar panels are currently backed up by natural gas and other types of power plants on the electricity grid... but with solar panels costing just $0.36 per watt, this would make it a good idea to install many more solar panels to back each other up instead of relying on another, older, Earth- and human-harming way of generating power.

At 36c per watt, 1000W of solar power is only going to cost you $360. With these costs arriving by 2017, we're not far from a far brighter (pun intended) future. Read more on this at the source.

For those not aware of who Machinima are, you might want to take a look - they feature more than two billion (that's with a B) YouTube views per month, and are one of the Internet's biggest entities on YouTube.

This is obviously worth a lot of money, but just how much? Well, the people behind the company are looking for a "mega-round" of financing. In 2012, Machinima executives raised $35 million in a financing round led by Google, and this time, they are looking for more than that, much more in fact. The money they hope to raise will help the company setup more advanced content ambitions.

At the moment, Machinima rely on clips contributed by YouTubers, but they want to spend more money licensing original shows like the big boys do. Also, instead of just running their new shows on YouTube for free, Machinima want to work out a way where they can create a subscription-based model like Netflix, or Hulu.

The super-realistic assault rifle controller, otherwise known as Delta Six, has enjoyed a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising over $200,000. The Delta Six is thanks to David Kotkin from Miami, who is a teacher.

Kotkin developed the Avenger, making enough money from it to retire from his career in education. The Miami-based now retired teacher saw the absence of a realistic gun controller, and thought it would be a good idea to make one. Kotkin told the Miami Herald that the notoriety scared off a public relations firm, "whose owner cited 'moral reservations,'" and that Arduino, the microcontroller staple of PC and console mods, backed away from the partnership because of the potential problems.

Kotkin's own wife won't let their 11- and 8-year-old sons play with the Delta Six, but stands by him and is proud of his inventiveness and accomplishments. She says: "When it comes to the gaming gun, you look at all the violence that's occurred and it's really difficult for me to say this is a great idea."

The past two weeks have seen the Internet filled with Edward Snowden, the NSA, Prism, GCHQ and much more - but what does the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, think about it all? Well, he feels "a little guilty."

Wozniak was a guest on the Piers Morgan show, where he was asked if he feels any responsibility for the technologies he and others in the industry have created, that have given government entities like the NSA the power to snoop on, well, everyone - his answer was:

This is something that has been discussed for quite sometime, that The Last Of Us' character 'Ellie' looks scarily like the real-life actress Ellen Page. She even sounded like her, shared mannerisms, and delivered dialogue in a scary mimic of the actress in the game's first trailer.

Naughty Dog made some changes to Ellie's facial features, making her look a little less like Page. But now Ellen Page has taken to Reddit for an Ask Me Anything (AMA), where someone asked what she thought of the character Ellie in The Last Of Us:

I remember last year when Ouya first reached Kickstarer, it was all the rage and I backed it to buy a Limited Edition console to have my username etched into the controllers - and because it looked like a neat little Android-based gaming console.

But, it's June 24 here in Australia and my Ouya console is stuck in Hong Kong. I've recently moved house (again, second time in 5 months) and I e-mailed them to change my address, which hasn't been acknowledged or replied to. If my unit is still in HK, then I won't be getting it for at least a few more days at the minimum.

The units are being shipped through DHL, and the last update for my Ouya console is 6/15 where it was "received & dispatched". There are still four more steps on DHL's website until it gets to me, unfortunately.

There has been a petition demanding that the US government pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, which saw over 100,000 digital 'signatures', forcing the White House to make a formal response. Considering the US government are attempting to charge Snowden with two counts of espionage, it'll be interesting to see what the White House has to say about this.

Snowden is currently in Hong Kong, although there are rumors of him heading to Russia, where he has been accused of "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person". The petition to pardon the NSA whistleblower was filed under the We Are The People initiative, which lets US citizens start petitions in the nation's interest.

Obviously, the US citizens' privacy is right at the top of the nation's interests - and if a petition passes 100,000 signatures, then it forces the White House to assign a staff member to respond to the matter. The petition was filed on June 9, and is asking for a pardon, which will most likely not happen.

Google Glass is slowly making its way into the mainstream, but this week during Wimbledon, pro tennis player Bethanie Mattek-Sands will don the wearable computing from Google. Mattek-Sands ranks as position 58 in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA).

She will be wearing Google Glass at Wimbledon this week in London, something Google announced a few days ago now. Mattek-Sands is in the Glass Explorer program, which saw a handful of people around the world receiving the wearable product. Google have said that Glass is both comfortable and unobtrusive, weighing no more than a pair of standard sunglasses. Considering pro tennis players are moving from left to right so fast, even a couple of hundred grams would make a big difference - even more so with the money at stake here - so this is a big, and most of all, positive move for Glass.

Google has said that Mattek-Sands is already benefitting from Glass, elaborating:

I've been waiting for what seems like years for Respawn Entertainment to unveil their game, which we saw at E3 as Titanfall. Respawn is a company made up of the ex-Infinity Ward guys, Vince Zampella and Jason West.

We've found out some more information on their upcoming shooter, which won't be including a single player campaign. This means Titanfall is a multiplayer only title, but it also gives the developer the benefit of putting all power into the single side of the game instead of splitting up people into separate groups. Respawn head, Vince Zampella has said that he considers the studio a "small startup" with "60 some developers", stating it's better to focus their resources where they'll be better utilized.

Zampella adds: